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 PANAMA 33 Besides the capital, Panama, the other chief towns are Santiago, Montijo, David, Porto- bello, Colon or Aspinwall, Chagres, and San- tos. Columbus, in his last voyage in 1502, discovered Chiriqui lagoon, and established a colony at Belen, but it was soon abandoned. The first permanent settlement was that of j Portobello by Nicuesa, in 1510. The Pacific was first reached by Balboa, Sept. 26, 1513. In 1514 reports of the immense riches of Cas- tilla de Oro, as the country was then called, led to the expedition of Pedrarias Davila, who transferred the seat of government in 1518 to Panama. In 158(5 Drake sacked Portobello ; the buccaneers under Morgan took it in 1665, and in 1670 reduced the castle of San Lorenzo at Chagres and burned Panama. In 1680 they crossed the isthmus under Sharp, Ringrose, and Dampier, and took the city of Santa Ma- ria, which led to the closing of the gold mines of Cana in 1685 by royal decree In 1698 William Paterson founded a Scotch colony at Puerto Escoces, on Caledonia bay. (See DAKIEN, COLONY OF.) In 1719 the Catholic missionaries had established several towns on the Atlantic coast and on the rivers flowing into the gulf of San Miguel, but they were all destroyed by the Indians. In 1790 a treaty of peace was made with the Indians of Darien, in compliance with which the Spaniards abandoned all their forts in that district. The isthmus of Pa- nama has derived its chief importance from its supposed facilities for the construction of an interoceanic ca- nal. Since 1528 the idea has been mooted of opening a canal be- tween the river Cha- gres (falling into the Caribbean sea at the town of that name) and the Grande, fall- ing into the Pacific near Panama, or the Trinidad and Caimito. The route was exam- ined by two Flemish engineers under the orders of Philip II. ; but for political rea- sons the king ordered that no one should revive the subject un- der penalty of death. In 1826 Domingo Lo- pez, a native of Colombia, traced a new line ! for a canal between Panama and Portobello. But the first formal exploration was made in 1827, under the orders of Gen. Bolivar, by the engineers Lloyd and Falmark. Their labors, concluded in 1829, proved that a railway, if not a canal, could readily be built between Chagres and Panama. In 1843 the French government sent out Messrs. Garella and Cour- tines to make examinations. Garella report- ed in favor of a canal from Limon bay, to pass under the dividing ridge of Ahogayegua by a tunnel 120 ft. high and 17,390 ft. long, to the bay of Vaca del Monte, 12 m. W. of Panama. In 1852 the government of New Granada con- ceded to Dr. Cullen and others the privilege of building a canal between Caledonia bay and the gulf of San Miguel. In 1864 Mr. Kelley of New York surveyed a route from the gulf of San Bias to the river Chepo, which would require a long tunnel. In 1865 M. de la Charme surveyed a line from the S. part of the gulf of Darien to the gulf of San Miguel, ma the river Tuira. In the same year M. de Puydt, an engi- neer employed by the French international Co- lombian company, announced the discovery of a favorable passage from the port of Escondido to the Tuira, and thence into the gulf of San Miguel. In 1870 Capt, Selfridge, U. S. N., sur- veyed two lines from Caledonia bay by different routes to the mouths of the rivers Sabana and Lara on the Pacific, but found no lower level on the Cordillera than 1,000 ft. Another line run from the bay of San Bias to the Chepo river was still more unfavorable. In 1871 he exam- Cathedral of Pan ined the line of M. de Puydt and found it im- practicable. In 1874 two other expeditions were sent out by the United States govern- ment, one to survey a line between the Atrato and the Pacific, across the Colombian state of Cauca, and the other a line parallel with the